Preventing and Treating Diabetes

Preventing the development of diabetes—and controlling diabetes in people who already have it—is complex, and some information is still unknown. But the following are some actions that medical evidence strongly suggests will help you keep diabetes at bay:

Choose Vegetarian Foods Instead of Animal Products

The high levels of saturated fat, cholesterol, and heme iron in animal products put people at risk of developing diabetes (or of worsening the disease if they already have it). A nutritious vegan diet built around beans, nuts, whole grains, soy, fruits, and vegetables will give you all the healthy plant protein and iron that you need while cutting cholesterol and saturated animal fats from your diet. Visit VegCooking.com for hundreds of delicious recipes, along with vegetarian meal plans, shopping tips, and lists of our favorite alternatives to meat and dairy products.

Eat Plenty of Fiber

Eating lots of fiber is a proven way to help prevent the development of diabetes. People who already have diabetes should consume large amounts of fiber in order to maintain healthy blood-sugar levels. Animal products do not have any dietary fiber, yet there's plenty of this important nutrient in beans, vegetables, whole fruits, oats, bran, and whole-grain foods. Plus, when you eat these plant foods, you'll also be loading up on vitamins, minerals, healthy plant protein, and other vital nutrients.

Dump Dairy

The multibillion-dollar dairy-products industry continues to push cow's milk on kids despite very strong evidence that dairy products cause a wide array of health problems, including diabetes. According to Dr. T. Colin Campbell, nutritional researcher at Cornell University and director of the largest epidemiological study in history, "The depth and breadth of evidence now implicating cow's milk as a cause of type 1 diabetes is overwhelming, even though the very complex mechanistic details are not yet fully understood."¹⁷ Babies should be fed breast milk—and if that's not possible, a nondairy formula—in order to avoid the dangers of cow's milk. Kids and adults should get their calcium from nondairy sources such as broccoli, dark-green leafy vegetables, almonds, most brands of soy and rice milks, tofu, certain types of beans, and calcium-fortified orange juice.

When you're at the grocery store, look for dairy-product substitutes, including soy, rice, and almond milk. Silk's cultured soy yogurt—available in luscious flavors like Key Lime and Black Cherry—and dairy-free frozen desserts by Tofutti and Soy Delicious are rich and creamy like the "real thing," but they do not have any cholesterol and they're much lower in fat. Check out more of our favorite dairy-product substitutes.

Learn more about the link between diabetes and diet.

Purchase the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine's Healthy Eating for Life to Prevent and Treat Diabetes.

"I Learned to Control My Diabetes!": Read the story of PETA Senior Vice President Mary Beth Sweetland.